Captive Freedom
by Molly Hunter
Summary: "Awaken the sixth ..." Who or what is the sixth?  Desmond goes on a journey, and finds something he never knew he wanted.  Gratuitous Desmond/OC.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first fic – please be gentle with it. It's pretty much het fanservice for all those who think Desmond is hot.

Desmond is UbiSoft property, not mine, blah blah blah. Onwards to the fic.

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"_Only she remains to be found. Awaken the sixth. Go. ALONE!"_

He was alone now. Desmond Miles, utterly and terribly alone. Lucy, the one constant in his life after this all began, wasn't there. She was alive – comatose, but alive. Others in the Brotherhood were taking care of her for the time being. Her absence still left an empty seat in the Sanctuary, and an empty feeling in him. He stirred the yogurt sitting in front of him – her yogurt. Might as well eat it before it goes bad, or before Shaun or Rebecca got to it.

Shaun and Rebecca were at their respective desks. After the initial shock of the events beneath the Coliseum wore off, the remaining three Assassins in their little unit immediately began to try and find meaning in Juno's words. They thought that perhaps this "sixth" might have been another one of the Ones Who Came Before, perhaps a helpful one, one who would aid their cause. Desmond and Rebecca were the first to find the meaning, sealed away within some of the hacked files left behind in the Animus memory core by Subject Sixteen.

There had been six "meetings," so to speak, of the Ones Who Came Before and humanity, in a different age, that had resulted in children. Their hybrid bloodlines gradually met and intertwined, five of the six combining – producing Altair Ibn La-Ahad and his descendants. The blood of the ancient ones ran strong in the family, somehow never diluting. Yet, there was still a sixth bloodline which had never intertwined with the others.

Shaun persisted in his historical research, despite Rebecca's insistence that it would be of no help in finding "the sixth." He studied the other five bloodlines, reading how they were inexplicably attracted to one another in love. Perhaps it was the pull of their alien genetics that brought them back together, or perhaps it was just happenstance and stereotypical love at first sight. Then, he began to notice a pattern of love and loss with the men of Altair's line – Adha, the first beloved of Altair, who had died before he could find her again. Cristina Vespucci, longtime beloved of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, married off to another at the insistence of her father, only to die in Ezio's arms wishing for a second chance. The sad theme seemed to repeat itself over again every few generations – incredible, lasting love at first sight, destroyed by unfortunate circumstances. The men, of course, always found another to love and wed. But what of these women?

He started to connect the dots. The women were all related – distant, yes, but all blood relatives. At Shaun's insistence, Rebecca and Desmond began trawling for genealogy information, hoping to find a woman in this bloodline about Desmond's age. They had all been becoming more and more frustrated lately, as branch after branch seemed to dead-end in a dull series of cat-owning spinsters in the 20th century.

Rebecca looked back towards the small kitchen area, if you could call it that, where Desmond was idly licking some yogurt off a pink plastic soon. Heh, of course that bastard would eat Lucy's yogurt before she could. She turned back to her monitor, to see if the search on the Dalya branch of the Ones' other descendants was proving fruitful. No, that pair had died in 2004 … wait … "leaving behind their daughter, Fiorella." A quick search of a nearby newspaper indicated that this Fiorella Dalya was at least eighteen at the time. "Shaun! Come look at this!"

Shaun walked over, and Desmond too, out of curiosity. Shaun edged very close to Rebecca, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he revealed all the information on Fiorella Dalya he could find. She was 26, just a bit older than Desmond, living in rural Louisiana, working as a secretary at a small oil and gas firm. "Start printing that. I'm going to find her," said Desmond as he began to roll up his sleeping bag. He gathered the documents as they rolled off the printer.

"Wait. You might want to take a good look at some of this." Shaun was back at his own computer, digging even deeper. "She attended a Catholic high school near New Orleans."

"So? Are you saying she's a nun in disguise? Or a Templar?"

"No, Desmond, it shows that she lived in or near New Orleans around 2005. Yes – here's her name on a registry of evacuees in Shreveport that August. I wonder ..."

"Wonder what?"

"Mmm, yes. You'll have to be very careful with her, Desmond. There are prescription records for three different kinds of antidepressants. Medical records indicate depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder ..."

"So? I just have to be careful not to set her off, right?"

Shaun sighed. "I don't know. She's not crazy like Sixteen, clearly not even crazy enough to be institutionalized. But she's not a trained assassin like we are. I don't know how she's going to handle you showing up at her door and sweeping her off to Italy. I'm not even sure she'll be able to handle it."

Desmond was frustrated. They'd finally found this thing, this girl, that he was supposed to chase after, maybe even knock up if the higher-ups of the Brotherhood deemed it so – and she was crazy? Great. "Hey Des!" Rebecca's cheery voice interrupted his thoughts. "Wanna see what she looks like?" He wandered back over to her terminal, where a picture of several people in caps and gowns was prominently displayed. "That's her, on the left of the Dean. She just finished college. Pretty, isn't she?" He had to agree – she looked like a flower in full bloom. Fiorella, such a fitting name.

He turned to gather his things again. "Can you crop that and print it out on photo paper for me? Wallet size?"


	2. Chapter 2

Here it is. Sorry for the wait – I had a temp assignment, how thrilling. I figured I should try to get this out before my next assignment, which starts Monday! Hopefully this one will go better … anyway, I also spent time fangirling over the Revelations trailer, which you should go watch.

I don't own AC, save for the two discs on my shelf below the Xbox. It's Ubisoft brain property.

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><p>It had not been an easy journey for Desmond. He'd lived in a shipping container for the past two weeks, on a cargo ship bound for the port of Baton Rouge. There wasn't much room, and the stench was incredible. As he disembarked under cover of night, he'd been relieved to find a brand-new motorcycle parked under a tree for him – and somewhat frightened when he noticed that there were two helmets.<p>

He'd found Fiorella's apartment building with no trouble at all. As it grew darker, he'd been able to climb to her second-floor balcony with little trouble, and fortunately for him she kept the sliding glass door unlocked. He slipped inside soundlessly, glad for the coming cover of darkness – but slightly worried. Sure, the November sun set early, and this girl worked outside of town, but it was getting late. Finally, Desmond had to hide in a (fortunately rarely-used) closet as he heard her stomping up the stairs.

Fiorella, or Ella as she was known to most people, shut the door and yelled "Fuck!" It hadn't been an easy day at work for her – some idiot at a storage tank site had made the costly mistake of talking on his cell phone next to a giant vat of flammable materials. One tiny static spark from the phone, and the whole thing went boom. She'd spent the majority of her very long day dealing with the press and trying to calm the nerves of the company president by providing a near-constant supply of good coffee. Neither of these, of course, were ever in the job description.

She threw down her bag, kicked off her heels, and turned on a few lights and the TV. From his closet hiding place, Desmond heard the evening news come on. "We're reporting live from the scene of a major oilfield accident ..."

"OH SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Ella snapped the TV off. She didn't want to hear about the accident again, and was oblivious to the fact the man hiding in her closet wanted to know what the deal was. Desmond could tell she had a bad day, and he wanted to comfort her – but instead he would have to show himself to her. and explain that he was kidnapping her. Well, perhaps it could wait until the morning. He continued to listen to the distressed woman as she went about her late evening – heating up something pizza-flavored, by the smell of it, and by the sound of it, getting a call from her boss which was followed by a greatly relieved sigh.

She awoke to a woman's coughing from the next apartment. Great, her neighbor Captain Dickhead had found another whore to fuck. By the sound of it, said whore was hung over and vomiting all over his bedroom. Heh, karma. If she had to live next to a bunch of lazy bums who do nothing but play loud music and screw while she tries to read or sleep, couldn't she at least get some sort of discount on her rent for it? This lame little job of hers barely made ends met. Her high rent had once been justified by the peace and quiet it afforded, but for the past two months she had barely slept. Perhaps that had only added to her grumpiness about working late after the accident, but her boss had sympathetically giver her a few days off. She supposed that was the good thing about working for a small company in a small town where everybody knew your business – the tiny little blessings like this. She tossed a hoodie on over her pajamas to protect her from the November chill, then padded out toward the kitchen to get some breakfast and take her meds. She idly wondered if she would be able to finish her book on the lives of Islamic women today, and if they had any less trouble finding a man than she did.

Desmond looked at the clock as he heard her stirring in the bedroom. 10 am – she'd slept in. Perhaps she got off work? Maybe she was fired? He watched from the shadows of her dim apartment as she poured a glass of water and took a complicated cocktail of pills. Antidepressant, birth control, various vitamins and supplements. The Abstergo logo glared at him from one of the bottles. He wondered how she could stand taking all this crap. Well, if keeping sane is one of the benefits, might as well, right? As she finished up, he knew that it was now or never.

He moved silently behind her, placing one hand over her mouth to stifle any screams while holding her warmly and protectively with the other. He had to be gentle; he didn't want her to become any more mentally disturbed because of this. He didn't want to put her through this, even, but it had to be done. "Shh, Fiorella, it's gonna be all right. Shh ..." It sounded so stupid as she struggled against him. His hold on her protectively tightened as she squirmed. He felt hot tears on his hand. No sound came from her but ragged breathing.

Ella's mind was racing. Who was he? What was he going to do? She feebly tried to escape his grasp only to feel it tighten around her. She didn't feel truth in his attempted words of comfort. This wasn't all right. How had he gotten in? Her hands wrapped around his arm, searching for any sort of comfort. No! He was going to kidnap her, hurt her …

Desmond felt her knees buckle. Rather than forcefully hold her up, he lowered her to the floor as she whimpered. She turned to him, hyperventilating, crying. "Why?" He sighed, giving her a pained smile. This was going to be hard to explain. He'd gone through this a million times in his mind on the uncomfortable journey from Monteriggioni. He knelt down next to her and carefully picked her up. She didn't resist. He'd seen this before in Lucy. He'd felt this before, in himself. She had gone into a state of shock, of emotional horror and blankness. He didn't want her to feel this. Swiftly, he carried her to the bedroom and gently put her back into her bed, lying down beside her. She was so beautiful, even when terrified.

"Rest, my little flower, rest. I swear to you that you will be safe with me. I won't hurt you, and I won't let anybody else hurt you either." He was afraid to touch her again. In her state of fear, she snuggled close to him, seeking his warmth. He wrapped his arms around her protectively, watching as her breathing slowed and she fell asleep again. All this research, this hunting, traveling in a cargo ship – none of it mattered anymore. He'd understood that she would have some sort of power over him – but as she slept, Desmond couldn't help but think that it wasn't going to be a bad thing.


End file.
